Leonard Cohen 30-Day Tribute ... Day 23: Album #7 Various Positions

Click here for "Dance Me to the End of Love" ***

Day 17: Album #7 Various Positions - "Dance Me to the End of Love"

The seventh studio album by Leonard Cohen, released in December 1984 (and February 1985). It marked not only his turn to the modern sound and use of synthesizers (particularly on the opening track), but also, after the harmonies and backing vocals from Jennifer Warnes on the previous Recent Songs (1979), an even greater contribution from Warnes, who is credited equally to Cohen as vocalist on all of the tracks.

Wikipedia: According to Anthony Reynolds 2010 memoir Leonard Cohen: A Remarkable Life, the pair (John Lissauer and Cohen) met at the Royalton on 44th Street in New York City so Cohen could play Lissauer his songs, and the producer was surprised:

...instead of presenting me with the new songs exclusively on a Spanish guitar as usual, he had this dinky little Casio keyboard with him...The Casio was a great discovery for Leonard because these machines allows you to put one finger down and have a whole band come back at you...and this is how he came up with "Dance Me to the End of Love".

Another alteration that Lissauer noticed was the remarkable change in Cohen's singing, with his voice having dropped about a minor third. Cohen later remarked to author Paul Zollo in the book Songwriters on Songwriting:

My voice has gotten very very deep over the years and seems even to be deepening. I thought it was because of 50,000 cigarettes and several swimming pools of whiskey that my voice has gotten low. But I gave up smoking a couple of years ago and it’s still getting deeper...My voice really started to change around 1982. It started to deepen and I started to cop to the fact that it was deepening.

Side one

View full tribute playlist here.

1. "Dance Me to the End of Love" (feat. string arrangement by David Campbell) – 4:38 ***
2. "Coming Back to You" – 3:32
3. "The Law" – 4:27
4. "Night Comes On" – 4:40

Side two

1. "Hallelujah" – 4:39
2. "The Captain" – 4:06
3. "Hunter's Lullaby" – 2:24
4. "Heart with No Companion" – 3:04
5. "If It Be Your Will" – 3:43